Warmer world spurred evolution of bats
Fri, 28 Jan 2005
WASHINGTON - Earth's bats may have undergone an evolutionary big bang 50 million years ago during a lush period of global warming, scientists say.
The powerful fliers make up 20 per cent of mammals, but little is known about their evolution.
Most bats use a biological form of sonar to find and track their prey. (Courtesy: University of California Riverside)
Now an international team of researchers has traced the history of four major bat families to the early Eocene, 52 million to 50 million years ago.
Back then, there was a significant global rise in temperature, as plants flourished and insect diversity was at its highest.
In Friday's issue of the journal Science, Emma Teeling from University College Dublin and her colleagues propose bats originated in Laurasia or the Northern Hemisphere, likely in what is now North America.
"As flying predators, capable of capturing prey on the wing, they would have had few competitors for the rich resources of the Eocene night," wrote Nancy Simmons of the American Museum of Natural History in a journal commentary.
Today's bats are grouped into 18 families based on their anatomy and use of echolocation.
"Megabats" are large, fruit-eating creatures that fly during the day in the tropics. "Microbats" are smaller, insect eaters who use echolocation to find their prey at night.
The researchers used DNA from modern bats to determine the evolutionary ties between megabats and microbats.
"The present work advances our understanding of where bats originated, when they diversified and how different bat families are related to each other," said study co-author Mark Springer, a biology professor at University of California, Riverside.
The team estimates about 60 per cent of the bat fossil record is incomplete. They hope future research will fill in more gaps, allowing bats to be classified in more detail.
WASHINGTON - Earth's bats may have undergone an evolutionary big bang 50 million years ago during a lush period of global warming, scientists say.
The powerful fliers make up 20 per cent of mammals, but little is known about their evolution.
Most bats use a biological form of sonar to find and track their prey. (Courtesy: University of California Riverside)
Now an international team of researchers has traced the history of four major bat families to the early Eocene, 52 million to 50 million years ago.
Back then, there was a significant global rise in temperature, as plants flourished and insect diversity was at its highest.
In Friday's issue of the journal Science, Emma Teeling from University College Dublin and her colleagues propose bats originated in Laurasia or the Northern Hemisphere, likely in what is now North America.
"As flying predators, capable of capturing prey on the wing, they would have had few competitors for the rich resources of the Eocene night," wrote Nancy Simmons of the American Museum of Natural History in a journal commentary.
Today's bats are grouped into 18 families based on their anatomy and use of echolocation.
"Megabats" are large, fruit-eating creatures that fly during the day in the tropics. "Microbats" are smaller, insect eaters who use echolocation to find their prey at night.
The researchers used DNA from modern bats to determine the evolutionary ties between megabats and microbats.
"The present work advances our understanding of where bats originated, when they diversified and how different bat families are related to each other," said study co-author Mark Springer, a biology professor at University of California, Riverside.
The team estimates about 60 per cent of the bat fossil record is incomplete. They hope future research will fill in more gaps, allowing bats to be classified in more detail.
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So, in case you noticed that bit about the post above being removed by the blog administrator, I didn't really censor anyone. I was just fiddling around and testing if you could post anonymously and I posted a test comment. Then when I tried to take it off, it put that instead, which I think probably makes me look bad, thus this explanation.
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